Everytime I read about DF I get this immediate feeling of needs to play it but then I remember how overly complex it is and just breath through my nose in light disappointment with myself. I...
Everytime I read about DF I get this immediate feeling of needs to play it but then I remember how overly complex it is and just breath through my nose in light disappointment with myself.
I suppose that I missed playing it when I was younger and games weren't supposed to be so "easy" on the UI than they're now (talking 90s here, not prehistory of gaming, but neither modern games) and so jumping in now that I've very little time available it's nearly impossible.
I remember seeing a docu-video about it and the author and I don't rememeber if he ever had any idea of investing in developing a graphical UI instead of the pure ASCII.
Has any progress being made in both the core game or third party software to help visualize and alleviate the need of a UI/UX?
DF feel like the most advanced and definitive Simulation game ever made but the fact that there is no graphical UI makes lots of people stay away in the end.
There are tilesets that convert the ASCII characters into little bitmapped sprites. This helps a ton for knowing what is what at a glance. For UI improvements, dfhack gives partial mouse support...
There are tilesets that convert the ASCII characters into little bitmapped sprites. This helps a ton for knowing what is what at a glance. For UI improvements, dfhack gives partial mouse support and a few other niceties, but it's still not a point and click game. Another powerful tool that helps a lot is Dwarf Therapist, which gives you a spreadsheet sort of layout for managing dwarf labours.
Recently there's been a lot of progress made on a visualization program called Armok Vision. This renders your fort in 3d and allows you to explore in first-person. I've never really used it, so I'm not sure if you can actually play with it on, or if it's just for visualizing your fort offline.
Basically your best bet is to seek out the Lazy Newb Pack. This has tilesets and utilities built in, with launcher that lets you tweak settings. PeridexisErrant on reddit and the DF forums puts this together a few days to a week after a new update. If you want to play the latest version which just came out, you'll need to wait a bit for utilities to be updated, otherwise you can grab the last version here.
If you've got the time, I'd recommend watching someone else play for a bit. Check out some letsplays on youtube, just to get a feel for how to embark, how to set designations, etc. Once you have the basics figured out, try playing a game, refer to the wiki often. Good luck!
Thanks to you too for the complete response :) That's one of the thing that I think keep people "away". I totally understand and dig the level of details this game goes into and how much...
Thanks to you too for the complete response :)
Dwarf Therapist
That's one of the thing that I think keep people "away". I totally understand and dig the level of details this game goes into and how much micro-management allows... but maybe a "light" mode should be thought for when I don't want to have to be the therapist of every single dwarf? :)
Heh, I get where you're coming from, but it's not that bad. Basically, let's say you need something dug, but it's not getting done, you check and see that your miners are hauling furniture instead...
Heh, I get where you're coming from, but it's not that bad. Basically, let's say you need something dug, but it's not getting done, you check and see that your miners are hauling furniture instead of mining, so you disable hauling labours for your miners. You can do this from within the game, but the interface is atrocious, so this third-party program gives you a nice mouse driven GUI to make it easier.
There's a dfhack module called "autolabor" or something similar, which automatically assigns tasks to your dwarves. I've never used it, because honestly, the micro-managing is a big part of the game. You'll often find yourself playing the game for 20 minutes on pause, just trying to sort out the logistics of your different industries, planning out fortress expansions, etc. I know it doesn't sound appealing at all, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, it can be very cathartic and satisfying.
Oh no, that sound wonderful. I love games that require planning. My personal gripe with DF is that it makes it hard to being able to (so raise the need of third party software to make it...
You'll often find yourself playing the game for 20 minutes on pause, just trying to sort out the logistics of your different industries, planning out fortress expansions, etc. I know it doesn't sound appealing at all
Oh no, that sound wonderful. I love games that require planning. My personal gripe with DF is that it makes it hard to being able to (so raise the need of third party software to make it reasonable). I got already plenty of good hints and tips and saved all the topics in my bookmarks. Next time I restart on linux I'll spend some good time figuring out how to properly install and configure stuff :D
Thank you so much for the in-depth response. I'm bookmarking this reply as I feel like not having any game really interesting me lately and it would be a good time to try it again. Just a last...
Thank you so much for the in-depth response.
I'm bookmarking this reply as I feel like not having any game really interesting me lately and it would be a good time to try it again.
Just a last question, is there any chance that DF and relative starter pack/tools are available for Linux based systems?
Everytime I read about DF I get this immediate feeling of needs to play it but then I remember how overly complex it is and just breath through my nose in light disappointment with myself.
I suppose that I missed playing it when I was younger and games weren't supposed to be so "easy" on the UI than they're now (talking 90s here, not prehistory of gaming, but neither modern games) and so jumping in now that I've very little time available it's nearly impossible.
I remember seeing a docu-video about it and the author and I don't rememeber if he ever had any idea of investing in developing a graphical UI instead of the pure ASCII.
Has any progress being made in both the core game or third party software to help visualize and alleviate the need of a UI/UX?
DF feel like the most advanced and definitive Simulation game ever made but the fact that there is no graphical UI makes lots of people stay away in the end.
There are tilesets that convert the ASCII characters into little bitmapped sprites. This helps a ton for knowing what is what at a glance. For UI improvements, dfhack gives partial mouse support and a few other niceties, but it's still not a point and click game. Another powerful tool that helps a lot is Dwarf Therapist, which gives you a spreadsheet sort of layout for managing dwarf labours.
Recently there's been a lot of progress made on a visualization program called Armok Vision. This renders your fort in 3d and allows you to explore in first-person. I've never really used it, so I'm not sure if you can actually play with it on, or if it's just for visualizing your fort offline.
Basically your best bet is to seek out the Lazy Newb Pack. This has tilesets and utilities built in, with launcher that lets you tweak settings. PeridexisErrant on reddit and the DF forums puts this together a few days to a week after a new update. If you want to play the latest version which just came out, you'll need to wait a bit for utilities to be updated, otherwise you can grab the last version here.
If you've got the time, I'd recommend watching someone else play for a bit. Check out some letsplays on youtube, just to get a feel for how to embark, how to set designations, etc. Once you have the basics figured out, try playing a game, refer to the wiki often. Good luck!
Thanks to you too for the complete response :)
That's one of the thing that I think keep people "away". I totally understand and dig the level of details this game goes into and how much micro-management allows... but maybe a "light" mode should be thought for when I don't want to have to be the therapist of every single dwarf? :)
Heh, I get where you're coming from, but it's not that bad. Basically, let's say you need something dug, but it's not getting done, you check and see that your miners are hauling furniture instead of mining, so you disable hauling labours for your miners. You can do this from within the game, but the interface is atrocious, so this third-party program gives you a nice mouse driven GUI to make it easier.
There's a dfhack module called "autolabor" or something similar, which automatically assigns tasks to your dwarves. I've never used it, because honestly, the micro-managing is a big part of the game. You'll often find yourself playing the game for 20 minutes on pause, just trying to sort out the logistics of your different industries, planning out fortress expansions, etc. I know it doesn't sound appealing at all, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, it can be very cathartic and satisfying.
Oh no, that sound wonderful. I love games that require planning. My personal gripe with DF is that it makes it hard to being able to (so raise the need of third party software to make it reasonable). I got already plenty of good hints and tips and saved all the topics in my bookmarks. Next time I restart on linux I'll spend some good time figuring out how to properly install and configure stuff :D
Thank you so much for the in-depth response.
I'm bookmarking this reply as I feel like not having any game really interesting me lately and it would be a good time to try it again.
Just a last question, is there any chance that DF and relative starter pack/tools are available for Linux based systems?
That's just perfect because Linux is my "developer and doing serious shit" partition and DF would be the perfect thing to ruin that :P